When you accidentally delete an item from your Outlook Web App mailbox (the web browser version of Outlook), you can often recover it. The first place to look for a deleted item, such as an email message, calendar appointment, contact, or task is the Deleted Items folder in your mailbox. If you can't find it there, the next place to look is the Recoverable Items folder, which you can access by using the Recover Deleted Items tool.

Need to recover a deleted mail folder in Outlook Web App? You can recover a deleted folder (with all of its messages) if it's still in your Deleted Items folder—See How. Unfortunately, you can't recover a folder that's been permanently deleted. But you can use the steps in this topic to recover messages from the Recoverable Items folder that were in a folder when it was permanently deleted.

Recover an item that's still in your Deleted Items folder

When you delete an email message, a contact, a calendar item, or a task, it's moved to the Deleted Items folder in your mailbox. If you're trying to find a message that was deleted, the Deleted Items folder is the first place to look. If the message is there, here's how to recover it:

Tips for recovering items in your Deleted Items folder

If you delete a folder, it's moved to the Deleted Items folder and appears as a subfolder. To recover it (and all the items it contains), right-click the deleted folder, click Move, and then select a folder to move it to.

To make it easier to find items in the Deleted Items folder, you can sort by Type, which groups together similar types of mailbox items.

Your admin may have set up a policy to delete items from your Deleted Items folder after a certain number of days. Just like when you deleted an item, items deleted by a policy are moved to the Recoverable Items folder. So if you can't find something in your Deleted Items folder, look for it in the Recoverable Items folder. The next section shows you how.

Recover an item that's no longer in your Deleted Items folder

If you can't find an item in the Deleted Items folder, the next place to look is the Recoverable Items folder. This is a hidden folder, and it's the place where items are moved when you do one of the following things:

The deleted date for an item in the Recoverable Items folder specifies when the item was originally deleted and moved to the Deleted Items folder. It's not the date the item was permanently deleted and moved to the Recoverable Items folder.

If you have a lot of items in the Recoverable Items folder, it may be hard to find what you're looking for because items don't have icons, and they all look very similar. Here are some tips:

If you're looking for a contact, look for the name of the person. Contacts also don't have a subject field.

If you're looking for a calendar appointment, look for an item that doesn't have a person's name or a subject line.

If you're looking for a contact, calendar appointment, or a task look for the text, No preview is available.

To recover multiple items, click the checkbox next to each item and then click Recover. The checkbox doesn't appear until you hover over it.

You can also recover multiple adjacent items by clicking the checkbox for first item, holding down the Shift key, and then clicking the checkbox for the last item. When all items are selected, click Recover.

You also can purge items that are shown in the Recover deleted items window. Just select the item and then click Purge. But be careful, if you purge an item, you can't use the Recover Deleted Items tool to get it back. You'll have to ask your admin if they can still recover a purged item.

If you work for an organization, your admin may have specified how long items in the Recoverable Items folder are available for recovery. For example, there may be a policy that deletes anything that’s been in your Deleted Items folder for 30 days and another policy that lets you recover items in the Recoverable Items folder for up to another 14 days. Even after this 14 days, your admin may still be able to recover an item. If you can't find an item in the Recoverable Items folder, ask your admin if they can recover it for you.